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Community leader Helen Stafford shares her life story, describing her childhood in Kansas and her experiences as a young African-American woman in Depression-era Tacoma. Reflecting back on over sixty years of civic involvement, Stafford comments on her work with the Matron's Club, the NAACP, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and the Washington Public Employees Association labor union. She also provides numerous insights into the changing face of Tacoma after World War II.

The Helen Stafford oral history interview forms the core of a class project by Helen Gilmore for the Community History Project under the supervision of Professor Michael K. Honey. The contents of Gilmore's project are contained in a comb-bound binder, which includes the transcript of the interview, Gilmores research paper, and a small collection of scanned newspaper articles. Also included is a scanned black-and-white photograph of Stafford at age 14. The original sound recording of the interview is not present.